I Loved You First
by Diana Prallon
Summary: Before anything else, Morgana had loved Arthur, and this was the reason she couldn't stop.


**I Loved You First**

She had been expecting him to come into the throne room – where else would he go, if he wanted to regain his kingdom? As they burst through the doors, she didn't even flinch.

"Welcome dear brother. It's been far too long."

And it indeed had been. There were knew lines of worry in Arthur's face. Morgana knew how much of those were her own fault, but she would not apologize. It had made him more regal, more of a man, and the boy she grew up with had been but a shadow of who he would become.

Well, that could have been said about either of them.

"I apologize if you had a difficult reception – it's hard to know who to trust these days."

She glanced quickly at Gwen – she wished her to know who exactly she was talking about. Morgana cared nothing for the couple of thieves that accompanied them. They were no one of consequence. Everything that had been right in her life – everything that had turned sour was there.

Gwen, her one friend, that had chosen to seduce the man she loved away from her even before they knew he'd be forever forbidden to her.

Merlin, who pretended to accept her and to be her friend only to poison her, sure that if she was magical, she had to be a threat and trying to get them all killed.

Arthur, her companion, her opposite, her first love, her brother, her sin.

"What happened to you, Morgana?" His voice broke something inside her – something she had frozen long ago, something she had pretended that never happened. It came bubbling to the surface, as he looked at her. She had defeated him, not with swords and magic, but with feelings and words, as once he had done to her. "I thought we were friends."

It wasn't the word she would have used – it had been so much more than friendship. There were things – now considered shameful, and another one of Uther's crazy lies – that had been between them, but Arthur couldn't even remember that, could he? It had been nothing to him, it had meant so little… All those years she had spent, sure that she was being groomed to be his Queen, they didn't haunt him. It didn't make him sick to think of how their father had played them, almost to a point of no return, to protect his own secrets.

What would Uther have done if they hadn't waited? What if they had acted on their feelings, their certainties about how their life would play? Would he have kept silence to protect a crown, even if it tainted it forever?

They would never know.

"As did I." And she truly had believed it to be a bond that couldn't be shattered. "Alas, we were both wrong."

Years of lies and schemes, of falsehood and treason stood between them now, and there was little they could do about it. There was no coming back – there was no way to fix it, to pretend it hadn't happened. They couldn't kiss and make up as it was done in fairytales.

"You can't blame me for my father's sins."

Morgana would have laughed, if her throat wasn't so constricted by emotions. Arthur was a true fool if he thought it had been all about revenging Uther for his persecution of magical people – Uther was dead and done with, and Arthur's own sins were the reason she kept fighting.

Arthur's obliviousness.

Gwen's desertion.

Merlin's betrayal.

They were three things, and yet, they were one same belief: the certainty that nothing good could come of magic and those who had it, the idea that her gift was a curse, that she was doomed to be a danger and unworthy of their trust. She had been their friend once – once, they had been all as close as it was possible. In the end, Arthur had chosen Gwen, and both Gwen and Merlin had chosen Arthur, and she had been alone and scared, and no one seemed to care but Morgause. What choice did she have? Should she have shut herself up, allowing loneliness to eat her until it caused her to lose her mind, as it had done to Uther? Revenge might have made her more than a bit insane, she could recognize it, but, at least, she hadn't been alone.

"It's a little late for that. You made it perfectly clear how you feel about me and my kind. You are not as different to Uther as you'd like to think."

His answer was quick and absolutely true, and it singed even more for it:

"Nor are you."

One day, a life time away, she would have forgiven him for it. One day, they would have argued until they reached an agreement, as old married couples do. One day, she would have allowed him to show her where she was wrong before she beat him with a sword, screaming every one of his faults, and it would have been alright. One day, she would have loved him even after his words.

Now it was all about rage and broken feelings.

"I'm going to enjoy killing you, Arthur Pendragon."

And to him alone, Morgana Pendragon, Queen of Camelot, Seer and High Priestess of the Old Religion would have sung a song of love and death, for him alone she would open the gates of Avalon and trap him into an eternal life, away from everything he had ever loved, because it was the only fitting response to what _he_ had done to her – shattered, broken, torn, parted from herself and from the world around her.

Still, as her following words tumbled out of her mouth against her will, she knew she would never be able to do it: Arthur was too protected, he was too strong to be defeated, too loved to be taken, and she could never actually move against him – he was still a part of her, in flesh, bone, magic and heart – and would forever be so.

She had loved him first.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I had never even thought about writing Armor before, this is unbetaed and it's almost 1 in the morning, so, forgive me if it completely sucks. :)


End file.
